Sr. Manager, Sales Planning
About The Position
The Sr. Manager, Sales Planning leads sales planning across Foodservice and In-Store Bakery Retail, translating business and commercial priorities into actionable plans that drive profitable growth. The role partners with Sales and cross-functional teams, using customer, market, and performance insights to identify opportunities, set priorities, and improve sales effectiveness. This is a people-leadership role focused on developing and empowering a high-performing Sales Planning team. The Sr. Manager provides thought leadership, sound judgment, and a bias for action, identifying needs and opportunities, making decisions, and driving work forward. The role also challenges current ways of working and explores ideas and technology to improve the team and sales organization. The position leads sales planning, commercial activation, performance measurement, cross-functional alignment, and sales capability development. It also serves as the business lead and subject matter expert for Salesforce, supporting effective platform use and representing Sales needs to Salesforce partners. Travel up to 25% as needed.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, Analytics, or a related field.
- At least 8 years of progressive experience in sales planning, sales strategy, commercial planning, sales operations, analytics, or related commercial roles.
- Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, develop, and enable others, including experience leading direct reports.
- Strong analytical capability, including the ability to synthesize customer, market, and performance data into actionable insights and recommendations.
- Strong business and financial acumen, including understanding sales growth, profitability, product mix, customer investment, and ROI.
- Understanding of customer segmentation, account prioritization, opportunity targeting, and sales coverage strategies.
- Ability to partner cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Customer Marketing, Finance, Revenue Management, Sales Operations, and other commercial functions.
- Strong leadership, coaching, and talent development capabilities.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and facilitation skills, including the ability to simplify complex information, present a clear point of view, and communicate with diverse audiences.
- Planning, project management, and process improvement capabilities.
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to navigate complexity and balance priorities across multiple businesses and sales channels.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic, and highly collaborative environment.
Nice To Haves
- MBA or an advanced degree.
- Experience in Foodservice, Retail, CPG, or similar industries.
- Experience with CRM platforms, Power BI, Databricks, and emerging technologies.
Responsibilities
- Build and maintain an engaged, high-performing Sales Planning team grounded in trust, humility, accountability, and development.
- Lead, coach, and develop Sales Planners and Sales Analysts, empowering them to take ownership, make decisions, and grow their capabilities.
- Set clear priorities and expectations, foster collaboration and continuous improvement, and address team and individual development needs.
- Lead annual and ongoing sales planning across Foodservice and In-Store Bakery Retail, translating business, channel, and commercial strategies into actionable sales priorities and plans.
- Use customer, market, and performance insights to identify growth opportunities and inform customer prioritization, prospect targeting, sales coverage, and resource allocation.
- Establish consistent planning methodologies, tools, and operating rhythms while adapting to the needs of each business and go-to-market approach.
- Partner with Sales and cross-functional leaders to align objectives, priorities, and success measures, connecting business strategy to sales execution.
- Identify needs, risks, and opportunities; make recommendations; and move decisions and priorities into action.
- Establish KPIs, scorecards, and measures of success to assess sales plan execution and effectiveness.
- Monitor performance, identify risks and opportunities, and turn data into actionable insights and recommendations.
- Lead regular performance reviews and align teams on actions and adjustments based on results and changing priorities.
- Serve as a trusted thought partner across Sales, Customer Marketing, Marketing, Finance, Revenue Management, Sales Operations, and other commercial partners.
- Constructively challenge thinking using data, business acumen, and commercial insights; build alignment and help teams move from discussion to decision and action.
- Lead Sales Planning's contribution to sales onboarding and ongoing upskilling to strengthen sales capabilities.
- Serve as the business lead and subject matter expert for Salesforce, providing Sales teams with knowledge, training, and support for effective platform use.
- Liaise between Sales and Salesforce partners, communicating business needs, feedback, and opportunities to improve platform support.
- Identify and champion tools, AI, technology, and ways of working that can improve seller effectiveness, adoption, and productivity.
- Travel up to 25% as needed.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
